Who would have thought amusing myself at work would be so much…work?

Something sort-of exciting actually happened at work today! (here is where you gasp and say “Excitement? In a library employee’s life? No way!”)

You loyal readers recall how in my morning routine of delivering newspapers at the Administration Building on campus I have to enter the Public Relations office, the place where I hear lots of voices coming from the offices but have seen no people in there EVER? Well, today I almost ran into a live, breathing person in the Public Relations office! It was amazing!

(Yes, I do sometimes imagine that I am Indiana Jones to liven things up) OK, so I didn’t really scream, but I was quite shocked. I did manage to mumble a ‘good morning’ before scurrying away.

Then I found myself right back at my usual, more-than-slightly mind-numbing task of sorting periodicals and magazines and checking them into the computer system. But today, instead of just going on autopilot and letting my mind think on its own, I started to think about the things that I usually think about when my mind starts to wander as I work on autopilot (I know, I confused myself a little as I wrote that down). And then I took this inventory of the ways that I amuse myself while I work:

1) Ask myself a lot of inane and often unanswerable questions about the periodicals that I work with. I counted and the question I asked myself the most was “Who the hell reads this stuff?!”, which was followed closely by “Somebody wasted their time to write this?!” Some of the journals and magazines we get are ridiculous; for example, today we received the ‘Journal of Marriage and Family’, the ‘Journal of Marriage and Divorce’ AND the ‘Journal of Divorce and Remarriage’ (all separate journals-I do not jest). Again, I ask, “Do people actually subscribe to these?”

2) Analyze the covers of the magazines and determine what they should have done differently to get my attention. We get a lot of business and accountant magazines, which is funny because they often have a picture of a balding, pudgy, white middle-aged male with glasses and a nasty tie on the front looking very seriously at you, with a giant “PRACTICAL ACCOUNTANT” stamped right across the top in bold letters. It’s so cliché it makes me laugh.

3) Practice reading Roman numerals. I have to check the volume numbers of the journals that we get, and a lot of them still think that it’s cool to use Roman numerals. Fortunately for me, I have six years of Latin under my belt. I’ve made a game out of it - every one that I get correct right off the bat, I get a point, and if I get it wrong, I lose a point. I don’t like playing it, though, because it makes me depressed to think about how good I’m getting at it (I need a life!).

4) Look at the pictures in the magazines that go out in the spin rack. I have to put magnetic tape in all the magazines that end up in our spin rack (so that no one steals them), and I need to put the tape on a page that people aren’t really going to look at (usually an advertisement). So, I end up flipping through entire magazines, hunting for a spot to place the tape. I like this part of my job because it gives me an excuse to look at pictures in the magazines (because those are the most important part of any magazine). I’ve found the magazines with the pictures I enjoy most are Time, National Geographic, Newsweek, Vanidades (they have nice dresses), and Sports Illustrated. Sports Illustrated has the best photos out of them all, and it is actually the place that I found my awesome Batman ‘Got Milk’ ad that is now on my fridge. Sweet.

(I’ll tell you, I’ve been drinking a lot more milk lately)

5) Listen to my iPod and consider what my life soundtrack should sound like. I’ve decided that if someone ever decides to make a movie about my life, I want the score to be done by Hans Zimmer, Howard Shore, Danny Elfman, Carbonleaf, Enya, Cruxshadows, Josh Groban, Vanessa Carlton, Eurythmics, Nightwish, and Harry Gregson-Williams (all together), and a feature song to be the ‘Numa Numa’ song.

6) Sing along with my iPod. I have to be careful when I do this, because even though my desk is in its own separate room (with a couch that I am apparently not allowed to sit on, but that’s beside the point), the reference librarian in charge of periodicals has her office right next to mine and I can get a little loud (I don’t want her to think I need medication). Today was hard to keep it in, though, because four Josh Groban songs, D.H.T.’s version of ‘Listen to Your Heart’, and Madonna’s ‘Frozen’ came on my shuffle while I was working, and I dearly love singing along with them.

So, these are the sort of things that I do when I do the periodicals. When I get to the circulation desk, it’s a whole other story, but I’ve been mostly gossiping and reading. I finished ‘Persuasion’ by the fabulous Ms. Austen yesterday, and today I finished ‘Pride and Prejudice’. I’m not sure what to read afterward, though - it’s a toss-up between ‘Ivanhoe’ by that Walter Scott guy or ‘A Charmed Life’ by Diana Wynne Jones. I don’t think it much matters, since I’ve read all these books already.

To the National Gallery…Again…

I have the week off this week and while I had originally planned to do nothing and lay about like a bum, I decided that I actually WANTED to drive to DC, park, and walk around the National Gallery of Art (taking photos, of course).

Well, I managed to convince my sister to come with me (though she did repeatedly remind during our trip that she did not want to be there), and we hopped in my car and drove off without a care in the world. Now, there is a secret way into the nation’s capital (not so secret, actually, but it is the least crowded and most pleasant way to go that I shall not reveal it, lest more people decide to take it and screw it up for me) and we were prepared to go that way, but for some reason they were doing ROAD WORK and we had to take a DETOUR!!! AHHH!!! However, we managed to figure out where we were and how to get into town very quickly, and the ride was not bad, and to top it off, we now know about five different ways into DC and we didn’t try to kill one another once during the ordeal!

Finding parking was, of course, a nightmare, but we managed to find a parking garage with space (and it cost $18 for three hours! Yikes!) and then trekked across the mall to the Gallery (which was nice because the sun was out and it wasn’t ridiculously hot). The gallery, as always, was nice and fun and we didn’t yelled at by anyone once this time! There was an interesting exhibit with sculptures by Martin Puryear which I was very impressed with (I couldn’t take any pictures, though, which made me a little peeved), and of course we looked at all the statues (which are my personal favorite). I also wanted to go to the sculpture garden, but my sister refused and anyway, we wanted to get out of the city before rush hour time.

The ride home was alright, except for the part where my rear brakes started to make weird creaking sounds, so now I am carless while it gets checked in the shop. But, anyway, here are my favorite pictures for your viewing pleasure:

OK, so the first two are outside of the gallery

(I love it when things line up, like these columns)

And next, for some statues…

(I love the way this child’s eyes look real…its kind of creepy)

And to change things up…how about a stained glass window?

This sculpture is in between the two art galleries:

And this ivy was along a wall outside the gallery and I thought it looked cool…

I know that was a lot of pictures to look at, but I hope you enjoyed them. I know I loved taking them.

TheBoredPoetess’ Epic Battle with a Massive Water Beetle!!!

Yes, my friends, I have narrowly escaped with my life after a recent encounter with the massive water beetle that lives in LaFonda’s sink! This is how my harrowing adventure went:

I was getting ready to take a shower, and I had just gotten undressed and turned the shower on when I happened to look down in LaFonda’s sink and lo and behold, there was one of the largest black beetles I have ever seen in my life. Now, you loyal readers know that I am not afraid of bugs or spiders, but I will say I was quite shocked when I saw this thing crawling around the inside of the sink. I think the fact that I was completely in the nude and totally unsuspecting that a creature of its size’s existence is what took me aback.

OK, so it wasn’t THAT big, but it was pretty large. It was probably about the size of my pinky! So, the shower was going and I didn’t want the bug to crawl out and try to climb into the shower with me (you never know how perverted insects can be), but at the same time I didn’t want to smash the beetle (because I didn’t think that grabbing it with toilet paper and stepping on it would kill it - its shell was as thick as concrete). Instead, I chose to plug the drain and turn on the water, to try and drown it.

It wouldn’t drown.

I think that it was a water beetle, and therefore could breathe underwater. It just swam laps around the sink.

So, disgusted that my plan hadn’t worked, I opened the drain again to let the water out of the sink and prepared to get into the shower, hoping that the beetle would be content to stay in the sink. Fortunately, when the water drained out of the sink, the beetle slipped towards the open drain a little bit and one of its legs actually started to go down the drain. Thinking quickly, I closed the drain and trapped the beetle’s leg in the drain hole, so that it was stuck. Then, hoping that perhaps prolonged exposure to water would finally drown it, I fill up the sink again and got into the shower.

However…when I got out of the shower and checked the sink again, the beetle was STILL ALIVE!!! It must be like the Highlander beetle or something!

Well, since I had already taken my shower and I was sick of trying to kill this massive beetle, I decided to just drain the sink and move on with my life, to hell with the bug. When I removed the plug, though, the beetle couldn’t fight against the tow of the draining water, and it slipped down the drain.

Now, I’m just a little paranoid that it is living in the pipes, growing bigger and bigger and plotting revenge against me. I think if it does resurface, I’m just going to smash it with the toilet plunger and get it over with.

My Life So Far…

Sooo…it is already July, which means that my summer vacation is ALMOST OVER! Not really (I’ve got two months left), but still - June went by very quickly and I have a feeling that July is just going to speed on by too. And before I know it, I’ll have to go and buy my books and get ready to start classes again! OH NO!

Though, I really shouldn’t complain because my summer is not very exciting, and at least when school starts I’ll be able to talk to more than four people on a regular basis. Work is as entertaining as ever. Sweet Thing has been sick with the flu, which has NBC Girl and I terrified that we are going to get sick too. My ’special job’ has now lost all challenging aspects to it and I feel like a robot going through the motions. Except when I have to deliver the newspapers to the Administration Offices - this can be quite thrilling. And I’ll explain why: one of the offices that I have to give papers to is the University Communications and Public Relations office. I have noticed that despite all the times that I have gone in there now, I have not seen one person working there (says a lot about our Public Relations, huh?). HOWEVER, I hear voices in every room in the office. It is one of the creepiest experiences of my life - it reminds me of LOST, because there is that one part of the island where you can hear all those voices whispering! Oooeeeooo…

Cool, huh? Yeah, it’s probably the most stimulating three minutes of my day (and that’s only because I think of LOST when it happens).

In other news, I have found out that Neil Gaiman has a blog. Awesome, no?! Neil Gaiman is probably only one of the best authors on the planet, and he has a blog that he regularly updates! Sweet! I have to be careful, though, because I have been known to develop stalkerish tendencies when I get obsessed over things like this.

I blame Facebook and Wikipedia; they’ve trained me to need to know everything about anything that might be mildly interesting to me.But now that I think on it, most of my generation is trained to use a stalker mindset because of sites like Facebook and MySpace. I never had a MySpace, but I remember after I got my Facebook, I would sit there for hours and do nothing but stalk people. There is something strangely fascinating about learning every scrap of information that you can about someone, and then checking up on them every half hour - it’s like knowing them without actually meeting them! Yes, it’s true that I have one friend on Facebook that I have never met in person, but seeing as they are a friend of JLo’s and I have talked to them, I felt it was alright.

Also, I have started to eat Activia, because now that I have to feed myself, my stomach has started a revolt at the food I can afford and I have been feeling sort of gross. I was skeptical at first, especially since I don’t really like to eat yogurt (the texture is just slightly disgusting), but I have been feeling a little better since I have started to eat it. Jamie Lee Curtis does the commercials now for Activia, so I figure there has to be something beneficial about it (Yay Jamie Lee Curtis!). It’s been about a week, and it says it takes two weeks to really work, so I have some time to go. The big downside to eating Activia is that I have been pretty gassy (which is probably a result of all that live bacteria getting into my intestines and doing whatever they are supposed to be doing). I take it as a sign that things are working as they should, but still…it’s kind of embarrassing.

Yeah…Activia=fun for everyone

How Much Longer Do I Have to Hold This Pose 3

That’s right, people! It’s another rendition of “How Much Longer Do I Have This Pose”! Basically, it means I spent another hour and a half at work searching websites for portraits and paintings, so that I could make fun of them. The best ones make it onto my blog for your enjoyment. So, without further ado, here we go:

Soap Bubbles by Jean-Simeon Chardin

“Bubbles, my anti-drug.”

Portrait of an Old Man and Boy by Domenico Ghirlandaio

“Grandpa, it looks like a monster chewed up your nose, didn’t like the taste, and then spit it out!”

St. Cecilia by Domenichino

“A…C…G…Poke the baby with my stick…C…G…F sharp…Poke the baby with my stick…”

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik by Dorothea Tanning

“Bitch - you killed my flower!”

Pierrot Laughing by Nadar

“No, YOU look ridiculous!”

Die Waldaff by Niki de Saint Phalle

“Little did Phyllis know her shoulder pads only accentuated the damage done by the witch doctor.”

Oath of the Horatii by Jacques-Louis David

“Ha! We don’t need swords to defeat you - we have our awesome ninja powers!”

Henry G. Marquand by John Singer Sargent

“I don’t have to know you to know that I hate you.”

So there we are. As of now, artists dead and alive are planning to roast me over lasers and make soup and colorful drink coasters out of my charbroiled skin because of the entertainment I derive from making fun of them. Ahhhh…I love art.

Who the Heck is Hannah Montana?!

Ah, what is the summer without spending hours mindlessly wasting your time watching TV? And of course, none of it is worth watching.

I don’t know if this is a sign of how out of the loop I am, but I don’t understand who Hannah Montana is. Who the heck is Hannah Montana?! I’ve had at least six people try to explain it to me, but I DON’T GET IT. I didn’t even know that ‘Hannah Montana’ was actually a character from a TV show played by Miley Cyrus until a year ago; I thought her name was really Hannah Montana. If she’s on TV, why does she have concerts all the time? And what’s with the wigs?

I think the weirdest thing about her is how kids freak out about this ‘Hannah Montana’. I’ve listened to about 30 seconds of one of her songs, and I didn’t think it was that spectacular. Her and the ‘Jonas Brothers Band’! And ‘High School Musical’! Why are kids getting excited about singing, dancing, and impossibly attractive teenagers? My sister brings back stories from babysitting about these these shows/movies; that’s how I heard about ‘High School Musical’ in the first place. The kids she watches love this junk! To date, I’ve only seen five minutes of the end of the “High School Musical’ and I don’t get it! Even four year olds are going ga-ga over these shows! What happened to obsessing about good things, like Power Rangers, Pokemon, or Powerpuff Girls? Or Spongebob? I love Spongebob Squarepants! I still watch it to this day!

Man, I remember the cartoons I got to watch when I was younger. They were so cool: Dexter’s Lab, Powerpuff Girls, Power Rangers, Batman Beyond, Pokemon, Cow & Chicken, Gargoyles, Pinky and the Brain, Beetlejuice, Darkwing Duck (that was a particular favorite of mine)! What happened?! How did we go from Dexter:

to Hannah?

There is some sort of generation gap here. Ah, well, it sucks to grow old. My life amounts to watching late night reruns of cartoons, avoiding cooking, getting stuck in traffic, and doing laundry.

Hey, looks like ‘Spongebob’ reruns are on right now; I think I might just have to watch.

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea…

Top Ten Carby Foods!

I love carbohydrates and bread products-they are, in my book, the best things to eat. I could probably eat bread for every single meal for the rest of my life. I would end up being one of the most unhealthy and obese people on the planet if I did, but I would enjoy every meal.

So here is a countdown of my favorite carby foods!

10) Quesadillas - tortillas are amazing

9) Cinnamon buns - hot out of the oven, super sticky, and covered in pecans, these make breakfast fun

8 ) Cupcakes - they’re like cake, except they are smaller and more personal. And its easier to pile frosting onto them.

7) Biscuits - classic Southern style biscuits, hot from the oven and covered in butter - I can’t imagine Sunday brunch without eating about five of them.

6) Chocolate Chip Cookies - Not to brag or anything, but I make the best chocolate chip cookies in the world. They are salty and sweet and always gooey on the inside.

5) Coffee Cake - the best part of coffee cake is the crumbly bit on the top. I like to pick it off before I eat the bottom. I don’t really know why they call it coffee cake-it doesn’t taste like coffee…

4) Spaghetti - Classic pasta with tomato sauce. Easy to make and easy to devour (messy, but that makes it all the more fun).

3) French Baguettes - So, there is just something about French bread: the crusty outside, the chewy inside-excellent with butter.

2) Fried Rice - nothing is better than rice, and nothing is better than soy sauce, except when you put them together. I especially like fried rice if there are peas in it.

1) Pancakes! - You can put anything on a pancake and it will be wonderful (syrup, Nutella, car oil,…)

^^This video is used a lot, but its awesome and its about pancakes, so I put it in this post.

Fantastic. Now all I want to do is eat bread.

“How Much Longer Do I Have to Hold This Pose”: Round 2

So, I received such good reviews on the last post like this, I decided that it was time for another one (it gave me something to do for an hour and a half at work). You know the drill: I find a piece of artwork, I post it for you, and then I tell you the untold, hidden thoughts of the subjects of the masterpiece!

Death of Caesar’ by Vincenzo Camuccini

“We told you before…yellow and red are not acceptable for casual Friday!”

Detail from Transfiguration by Raphael

“Jesus, dude, cut it out! You’re blowing our clothes away!”

Portrait of a Young Lady by Raphael

“OK, I give up. What the hell is this thing I’m holding?”

The Dining Room by Paul Signac

“Refill your own damn cup.”

Baptism by Piero della Fracesca

“Please don’t poop on me, please don’t poop on me…”

Mars and Venus by Sandro Botticelli

“Ugh…He always falls asleep when things start to get interesting…”

Alfred Dedreux as a Child by Theodore Gericault

“They call me Squid-Boy.”

Rubens and Helene Fourment Walking their Child by Peter Paul Rubens

“Why couldn’t we have had a pretty baby like Brad and Angelina did, instead of this creature?!”

I hope that you enjoyed these as much as the last ones! Once again, I have managed to take the priceless examples of human skill and creativity, and make fun of them…excellent!

Sunburns in Paradise

So, on Friday (my day off) I decided to go to the beach and enjoy the surf and the sun. It was absolutely wonderful…the water was chilly at first, but once you got used to it the waves were gentle but exhilarating. The wind was nice and the temperature was not too hot. Perfect summer afternoon…

Unfortunately I enjoyed the sun too much. I failed to put sunscreen on the back of my legs, and after hours of baking them in UV rays, they were very, very sunburned.

The back of my knees were burned, so it was excruciating to bend them. Its amazing how much your mobility is limited when you can’t bend your knees; all of Saturday I was confined to the apartment and couldn’t spend too much time moving around.

Which was not necessarily a bad thing…

I have been able to watch TV. Of course, it was all junk TV that I’m a little ashamed that I watched (’Shot at Love with TIla Tequila’ and ‘America’s Next Top Model’-I felt my brain oozing out of my ears). But it was a little relaxing to just sit in one place and not think for a few hours. My legs are feeling alright now and I walk normally (but I am not looking forward when they start to peel; the last thing I want are flakes of skin all over my bedsheets).

Of course, I could be poor LaFonda, who didn’t put sunscreen on her back and got just as burned on her back as my legs did. Sadly for LaFonda, though, she already had a sunburn on her back. So, it is now blistering up and looks like she’s got leprosy of some sort. Its kind of cool. She could really do much but lay in bed on her stomach.

Other than this, there is no more excitement in my life. Summer continues at the library as boring as ever-everyone who works at the circulation desk has started to write stories. Its kind of fun, working with people like that. Every once in a while people finish a chapter and they share with everyone. I’m pleased with mine; mind you, its only a first draft, but I am having fun writing it, which is the most important thing for me. I am waiting for the next movie I want to see to come out. I think it may be ‘The Happening’, the latest M. Night Shymalan movie (I love his movies, and this one looks particularly creepy), but that doesn’t come out until next week. Oh well.

Working at LIBRA-RAY, Where We Put the ‘AY’ in PAR-TAY

You know how they always say be careful what you wish for? Well, I do believe that I am a victim of my own wishing.

This summer I am working at the library at my school, which is just slightly twisted because its just like being back in school, except I don’t have classes and I am at the library longer. I was pretty excited that I can work at the library over the summer because I assumed that no one would come in and I would just be sitting at the desk for hours at a time, to do whatever I wanted.

Well, I got that. I sit at the desk for hours at a time, wondering what the heck I am going to do with myself.

OK, so its not like I am just sitting there doing nothing…I do have some work to do. You loyal readers may recall how I was selected for a ’special job’ (’selected’ means that I am the first student worker to arrive in the mornings), where I basically collect the mail and enter the periodicals, magazines, and newspapers into the computer system, and then deliver the newspapers to whoever receives them on campus (including the President of the college!). Its not hard work, but I have to be oh-so-careful to make sure I get everything just right, so it ends up taking a few hours. Usually by the end of it all my hands are all inked up, both from the newspapers and from the stamper that I use to mark the magazines as the library’s.

Its pretty gross, and I have to be careful not to touch my face, otherwise I end up smearing ink everywhere else. This morning was awful, because I had an itch on my nose and I really, really, REALLY wanted to scratch it, but my hands were all messed up so I couldn’t.

I also have the benefit of being one the few people who is allowed to shelve the new books we receive in a special reading room we have for them. This job involves me taking cartfuls of new books to the second floor, which can only be accomplished by taking the elevator. This may not seem like such a bad thing (they could make me carry all the books up the stairs), but you must realize that this elevator has come to be known as the ELEVATOR OF DOOM because of all the times that it has gotten stuck with someone in it. It also makes these very loud, shrill beeping noises any time you press a button, which startles me half to death. I hate riding the elevator; I know that it is going to stop one day with me in it, probably on my way back down from shelving so that I don’t have any books to read while I wait for the firefighters to get me out again.

When I’m not messing around with the magazines and newspapers or shelving books, I am at the desk, trying to figure out something to do. Usually, I write an email to JLo in China, whining about how bored I am, draw random lines on paint, gossip with the other girls I work with (who shall be referred to as Sweet Thing and NBC-Girl), and then I try to write something else (short stories, poetry, etc…). NBC-Girl and Sweet Thing have a harder time finding stuff to do, and so they end up starting up these weird competitions. Today, they had a solitaire contest, to see who could win at solitaire first. They spent the entire time an other day changing the screensavers on the computers. Now, they say “Par-tay at the Library”. Exciting, no?

So, that is my life now.

In other news, I saw “Indiana Jones” twice this weekend. It was not what I was expecting, but I didn’t think that it was bad (in my opinion, someone hasn’t gotten over ‘E.T.’). Actually, I enjoyed watching it-it was very fun to watch.

However, ‘Prince Caspian’ was TONS better. Sorry Indy.